Tanya Gold is a jerk; Richard Armitage nonetheless stays on message

Dear London Sunday Times interviewer, Tanya Gold,

It really kills me to write this letter to you, because you know my real name. I have loved at least two editorials you have written, and I loved one of them so much that I made the effort to track you down and write you a letter on my real university account — something you wrote about the royals in The Guardian — to which you responded kindly. I admired your language and your way of thinking. My friends and I discussed that editorial on our Facebook page and I sent you a screenshot of our conversation because I thought you might be interested in it. I thought you dared a lot with language, that you saw through things other people didn’t.

I take it all back. You see nothing.

Don’t get me wrong.

I really loved this interview because of things that Richard Armitage said in it. Some of it repeats old material, like the comment about the red carpet (he’s always hated them, he’s always thought they are weird, there are multiple comments to this effect in his early press), and some of it lets us learn new things. I knew that Gillian Lynne had praised his work, for instance, but to hear the full story? Priceless. Rock on, Mr. Armitage.

But you, Tanya Gold, you suck shit. I tell students not to curse in their writing, but you deserve this. It’s been a long time since I’ve been so irked at an interviewer, probably since I read the press interviews from 2009. Or maybe since the summer of 2011 when the Hobbit fanboyz were annoying me.

You tell the reader not to sneer, because you, yourself are sneering.

Let’s start with the way that you hate women. You hate that we can love things without having to sneer at them.

Innocent? Why don’t you just say naive? Or willfully ignorant. Because that’s what you meant.

Want to engage in a little innuendo, do you, Ms. Gold? To which I say this, a word to the wise:

What’s your problem? That we choose to enjoy something without asking for every single detail about it? That we have learned to do something you obviously can’t — what Armitage suggests in the interview you wrote should be the task of the audience — TO SEE MORE CLEARLY SOMETHING OF OURSELVES AS A CONSEQUENCE OF LOOKING AT THE WORK HE DOES — without having to have every detail of the fantasy we engage in correspond to reality? What poverty of imagination you have.

And believe me, I’m asking this as someone who has looked at every single detail about a thousand times. If there’s a detail about Richard Armitage, I’m likely to be aware of it.

Let’s move on to the fat hate.

I don’t like Vicar of Dibley. As long-time readers of this blog know, Harry Kennedy is my least favorite Armitage character. But actually, that wasn’t the point of the Vicar of Dibley conclusion. I have mixed feelings about the actual point — that a cheerful, hardworking, caring person is worthy of love and will attract a cheerful, hardworking, caring person — but you totally missed it. But I’m not a condescending jerk, either. I don’t pretend that other people’s fantasies, whether I share them or not, make them smaller. And you? If you don’t get that, that fantasy ennobles us, you’re nowhere near as smart as I thought you were.

Maybe you, you might be embarrassed to fall in love with a fat person. Frightened that people might think you were a little smaller, a little less important, a little less cool? Then you imply he cringed all the way through the role:

But you know, Richard Armitage? The guy who’s almost a star, too serious for all of this beefcake?

I know, because I spent two weeks in February 2010 watching Armitage’s scenes in Vicar of Dibley frame by lousy frame. Three times. I was interested in microexpressions. And I was interested in exactly that question. Was Richard Armitage embarrassed to be playing a character who was falling in love with or kissing Dawn French?

I can’t answer that, because I don’t know what is in Richard Armitage’s mind. But what I do know, from watching frame by frame for all that time, is that Richard Armitage never once cringes against character through any of his scenes romancing, talking to, or kissing Dawn French. That’s not true of all of his roles. He definitely cringes involuntarily when Lucas North is being lapdanced by a Russian spy. And there’s one other example of a cringe that might be characterization, and might be a lapse. But however he felt about Harry Kennedy’s role personally, Richard Armitage took the time and energy to give a perfectly convincing performance.

No, he never cringes once in Vicar of Dibley. I know, because I took the time to look. Because I am a fan, I do care. Because Richard Armitage convinced me to look at my own tendency to judge and suggested to me that it is possible to see things innocently. And enjoy them simply for what they are.

When I read your earlier writing, I thought you got something about women’s experiences, and people. I see I was mistaken.

Expletive deleted. I’ll be sending you a copy of this from my real university account — just so you know that those fans you’re slamming in this article? We are real people, with real intellects.

Awesome, Thank you! I thought that was just the strangest article I have ever read. Not only the content of it, but it was so unbelievably poorly written. The Sunday Times?! Where do I apply? Obviously skill in writing not a job requirement. And you were bang on with her content. What was her problem with Mr. A? Really weird article. I can’t imagine what kind of person people not familiar with him would think. She makes him sound like an idiotic jerk. She has issues. Just weird.

Yes, it was obvious when she described Geraldine as “the fat vicar” and nothing else. Why not the funny vicar? The compassionate vicar? The miraculously capable of tolerating and herding that village of mental inmates vicar? Some people see fat women as fat and nothing else, as if it overwhelms and invalidates everything else about us. Thankfully, not everyone thinks the same way.

You know exactly what I think. OMG, and the “he doesn’t know why he’s still single” thing…I’d love to know how she phrased that question because I can’t think of a single way to ask that that isn’t unbearably rude.

All in all, she’s managed to alienate quite a few factions, from Barry Manilow fans to those of who are carrying around excess adipose tissue. Well, this “fat old” Armitage admirer thinks she is going to find some time between working on video production stuff for PRP and the Chamber of Commerce, and giving the worrisome wrist a periodic rest, to work on a new Sloth Fiction entry. I think the ChaRActers will have something to say about all this . . . they really don’t like being (or having the CReAtor) insulted. No, they do not.

I’m amazed to discover that bawdy old me IS an innocent. I didn’t realize “Manilow” was a reference to you-know-what until I read everyone’s comments here. When I read that in the story I thought, “Where’s her copy editor? What the hell is Barry Manilow doing in here?” Ha ha ha!!!

Manilow is another example of someone subjected to crazy condescension and I confess that I used to be part of it. Then one summer while I was trapped in a hospital room with mom I heard an interview with him on (I think) Larry King. (Maybe it was Piers Morgan by then.) And such love and professional care for what he was doing and appreciation for his fans came out of that man and I thought, anyone who would ridicule something that makes these people so happy is him or herself ridiculous. It was kind of a key recognition for me.

Innocent? Us? She hasn’t read my fan fiction, has she . . . she obviously doesn’t really know nearly as much as she thinks she does about the fandom or our perceptions of this man. What a snarky cow she appears to be. And I thought I couldn’t stand that Vicki who blogged about Spooks. Hey, truth be told, I haven’t read that article yet because I’ve been pulling screencaps for PRP project. But I couldn’t resist peeking in here. Brava, my friend, brava! Frankly, now that RA’s star continues to be on the rise, I suppose we can expect more of this tasteless type of “journalism.” A price paid for fame . . .

being married and or having children is not proof of anything one way or another. Her nose was obviously out of joint about something. She probably was perturbed that he wouldn’t answer personal questions and stuck to the work, which is what it is all about for him and for us, so she retaliated with this really poorly written article. She should be ashamed at her lack of professionalism and display of really poor writing skill.

I will have to take your word on it that she is a good writer. LOL. She certainly didn’t display that here. But, on a cheerier note, I am just going to have to get into the mindset when I read articles like this is the fact that Mr. A. has now arrived on the radar … that his career has definitely hit the higher stratosphere now and these types of articles will become all too familiar. He just seems like such a decent person and crap like that shouldn’t happen to decent people. I will just tune it out I guess.

Personally, I would much rather see someone stay unattached rather than have a long trail of broken relationships behind them . . . just my opinion. And it’s true–being married to someone of the opposite sex, even having children is no sure-fire indicator the person is 100 percent hetero. And not being married by a certain age, or never marrying, does not mean that person must be gay or lesbian.

I think Heather may be right – she’s a freelance writer, maybe just did it for the money, wasn’t really interested in RA, went along with a bit of a ‘chippy’ attitude and RA, maybe already in Proctor mode, maybe not really wanting to do an interview, let alone one with someone who he senses has a bit of attitude towards him, gave a guarded interview back.

She, like a lot of journos probably, just googled him before she went and not getting very much in the personal department out of him, just gave her own judgements. (His interviews are always better when he’s obviously happy he can just stick to answering about his work and not any personal stuff.)

And yes, really interesting questions to ask him would have been-Who suggested you for the job? Did you audition? Are you going to do more theatre?

And a pat on the back is required to whoever suggested him, Yael Farber and The Old Vic!

I suspect, Judi, that she came to the table with an agenda in place and her angle for the interview already plotted out, hoping to provoke him along the way . . . thank goodness Richard is patient and disciplined, the compleat professional–or she just might have seen that “filthy temper” he has referred to in the past in action. I am betting he was VERY happy when the ordeal was over and done with.

she’s two years younger than he is, and an Oxford grad. She’s made a lot of points attacking Oxford privilege but boy she sounds snotty here. Maybe she thought she could outsmart him, but I bet he could eat her for breakfast.

I think it’s safe to say she made some poor judgment calls in the way she handled the whole thing, and that’s a shame. Here’s a paper with a large readership and an actor who is an interesting, intelligent guy who is thoughtful in his responses, who has great insight into the acting profession and a marvelous sense of humor, to boot—interviewee gold! Yet, she’s too busy trying to slide in her little innuendos to do a proper job of letting us get to better know the subject, Richard Armitage and how he approached and prepared for this key role of Proctor. To slightly paraphrase Miss Austen: Badly done, Tanya. Badly done.

Does she subscribe to the philosophy that all actors are actually quite thick, do you suppose? Or does the fact he hasn’t got an upper middle-class background and a university degree as some of his peers do mean she thinks it is OK to “talk down” to him . . . I wonder. *shakes head*

Thank you, Servetus, for this letter to the author of that Sunday Times article.
I, too, was offended by her sneering tone and her belittling attitude towards Richard’s fans, as well as part of his work.
Perhaps she doesn’t realize that all she’s done is to reveal her own insecurity and unkindness — she thinks she can make herself appear intellectual and cultured by insulting other people. How pitiably wrong she is!
Nevertheless, I’m glad that Richard came through as the thoughtful and hard-working person that we’ve come to know.

I don’t think her attitude has anything to do with actual facts about her fans — it’s about the writer positioning herself as “better” than the fans, because she’s dismissive of their enthusiasm. She’s saying, “I am more dignified than to let people see my feelings.”
It appears to be a very middle-class British attitude, that you have to display highly refined taste in art and entertainment, and you must control your emotions at all costs.

I know, I thought that was really strange. There is a website that discusses in general how to get celeb autographs and fans log in when they get one and usually leave a pic. Maybe that was what she was talking about. Every now and then a post from there pops in Google alerts but I wouldn’t call it central to the fandom.

What’s odd about this interview (in comparison to the Daily Mail shit) is that the Daily Mail wanted essentially to say something mean about the play and about Armitage and the remarks about gawping women were a tool to accomplish that.

In this case, she seems to think he’s doing him a favor by insulting both his fans and his past body of work. Puzzling.

wow, fascinating insight. I will have to think about that some more. If that was what was happening that was another huge mistake. This guy is hardly a misogynist. This is the guy who asked if Sarah Wayne Callies should drive the truck in some scenes in Into the Storm because he didn’t want to make it look like only men drove trucks.

Absolutely, the effort was terribly misplaced if so. You see this a lot, though, from women in heavily male-dominated careers. They learn that one way of earning the respect of their male colleagues is by distancing themselves from other women by putting them down. It’s gross.

That is really interesting…. she probably assumed he has contempt for his fans like she has (and perhaps like some other stars do, unfortunately). It would have been REALLY easy right now for her to find out how wonderful he has been to his fans every single night after an exhausting 3.5 hr. play….. but she apparently didn’t. (I bet the “lazy” comment he made was meant to include her too!)

First time poster, long time lurker here. Love Mr. Armitage’s work. Will be seeing the Crucible on the 1st of September. I don’t give a flying fuck if he is gay, straight, bi, etc. Found this interview to be horribly intrusive. However, obviously, Richard has been anticipating these interviewers asking about his personal life and is sticking to not talking about it. This is the second Crucible interview I’ve read that seemed to be more about him than the play.

When I first read the article I was angry and I confess felt hurt. But after reading everyone’s comments here I just have to laugh. What a ridiculous article. It’s good to read everyone’s venting and all the funny comments. I don’t feel angry anymore.

Also, what was the bit about the naked dream? It didn’t seem to have much of a point and seemed taken out of context. Would loved to have heard the actual taped version of this conversation. May have made much more sense. I think she definitely had an agenda. She wanted to get the Richard Armitage “coming out” interview. Ugh….

I agree: v. disjointed. But newspaper copy has to be written without transitions — essentially so that the editor can strike any paragraph at will to save column inches So she might have made a connection there that an editor struck. Or not. Hard to say.

I think the naked dreams, what they perhaps symbolize, may be RA alluding to feelings of anxiety about performing the play well and having his performance well recieved. But now that the reviews are in, I think he will be having no more naked dreams.

I loved a lot of the stuff Armitage said — including the point about how actors cause us to see ourselves differently — something I’ve been circling around here for the longest time — but she could have done a much better interview without the insulting bits.

Well said. Very well said. I thought it was just me. :{ I felt very fat-shamed. And the nakedness thing was obviously just clickbait, and not very well-done clickbait… so much editorial viewpoint in this, but once you waded through that, I was interested in his comments. But ugh, her crap was just… no, cutting down your probable readership doesn’t make you cool.

Loved your letter to the editor. hmmm…do you think she will get an interview when they release the final Hobbit film, I’m betting, not! I also hate when interviewers use the words from other interviews and make them their own. And for him not being married at 42…My husband and I got married 15 years ago when he was 41, after a long-term relationship. It’s not her business why he is not married.

I agree this is the strangest most uncomfortable interview I’ve read about Richard. Ms. Gold left me longing for something smarter, say the Dandalf interview. cough Stupid cow – they ARE motorcycle jeans. The Crucible is NOT Public Domain! If she wants an innocent Barry Manilow fan she can talk to hubby; I’m too busy reading erotic Armitage fanfiction. I bet she found the manip photo of Richard in Cats online. I never knew that Richard turned down a lead part in Hair at School; I thought they did Showboat. She saw nothing of humorous Armitage. (Is not wanting to do musicals but wants kids code for something?) Yes I’m rambling. So did she.

and didn’t Barry Manilow come out years ago? And did anybody care? I didn’t hear about any fans going beserk. So what is the parallel she is trying to make anyways? She is an idiot. Lots of people devoted to their professional lives don’t marry. Or marry late. I don’t think RA has found anyone he loves more than he loves his work at this point. Or maybe he has. What does it matter. What century does this interviewer live in? Not knowing about his longtime or short time or anytime partner makes his characters all the more believable to the audience because you are seeing the character, not musing over the latest article in the tabloids. Mr A is a very intelligent man who seems to be very very serious about his craft. Good for him for not caving in to this idiot ‘journalist’ and staying true to himself and not playing the game of selling your soul for an article.

I confess I’m still worked up over this entire article. Let it go, let it go I keep telling myself. I just think she was insulting to him, to his admirers, to those he has worked with and for on past projects…and future projects, to women in general. She is just clueless.

I actually liked his character in Cold Feet. When he said ‘it’s probably me Mum” and grabbed for the phone with Ramona…that was hilarious. And kind of touching and sad. He played the ‘cad’ very well. And the final scene he was in in Moving On…when he was in prison and is visited by the now ex girlfriend, I thought he was masterful with that scene. The look in his eyes at the end…..expressed so much. All those past jobs in their own way prepared him for the ultimate role in The Crucible. That journalist is not too bright in my opinion. RA has nothing at all to be ashamed of regarding past projects (speedos and all).

I didn’t know he got a lot of fan mail for Cold Feet. Makes sense though because he looked seriously hot in that. And as a youngish actor starting out, exposure is crucial. And Mr. A, being a very intelligent person, I’m sure knew exactly that a part like that would get him noticed. Everything he has done has been a stepping stone to something better. One of the big things I find attractive about him is his intelligence.

When she had the nerve to ask why he wasn’t married, I blew my gasket. I heard that same patronizing tone some ‘smug married/coupled’ people use with single people. Plus she had the f**cking nerve to ask that for what? To out him? Paint him as a workholic actor? Ms Gold wanted to paint him as something to ask that question.

There were so many other things to ask:

How did Yeal Farber know about him?

What’s it like to work with actors making their stage debut? Has he passed along advice he wished he had starting out?

Fatima, my husband and I have been married almost 30 years and have no children, other than the furry kind. People can be quite patronizing about childless couples, too, along with single people âof a certain age.â Let people live their own lives, make their own choices, and donât make presumptions about what isnât your business to begin with, I say.

I like your questions, BTW. Would have preferred answers to those questions than the space devoted to trying to ferret outâwhatever she thought she was going to get.

I had a look at another article she wrote about celebrities and politicians. Ms. Gold has this belief all actors, or anyone in entertainment really, are complete airheads. They are not fathers, mothers, uncles, aunts, sons, daughters, partners, etc caring about issues that effect all of us.

Ah, that confirms what I suspected, then. Of course there *are* shallow, vapid, empty-headed people in the world of celebs—ladies and gentlemen, exhibit one. The Kardashians!!—but you can’t paint an entire industry with the same brush. To see the world as so black and white is rather naïve and narrow-minded on her part.

And now that I’ve had a moment to think about it + read other comments, it strikes me that he’s never acted ashamed of doing Dibley, or mocked himself for it the way he does Cold Feet. I read a fan encounter on C19 during the filming where he seemed very exicted & happy to be doing it, and he’s certainly mentioned it in other interviews. He seems to get asked about it every time he’s on Lorraine (which would be annoying if she weren’t so adorable, imo), so when this author says something like “best not to mention Dibley” or whatever – I’m not going to look it up – it sounds like either she already had her own take & didn’t want his input to throw off her story OR she asked in a snarky way and he didn’t take the bait, so she left his comments out. It’s an unfortunate article.

Yes — asked repeatedly, and repeatedly, and repeatedly, about how he feels about past work, Richard Armitage has said exactly once that he was embarrassed of something he’d done, a “student film” which we think might have been “Staged.” He was asked the last time by Strombo if he was ashamed of taking his kit off and he denied it.

Lorraine is a nice mature woman who thinks Dibley is sweet, and he kindly agrees with her, no matter how he feels. And no matter what Ms Gold thinks that character is widely loved all over the world. Maybe it makes her feel superior not to feel that way.

Strombo, ya, he’s my hometown boy! He is a very good interviewer, very intelligent, and does his homework and is very savvy re pop culture. Too bad he is doing hockey commentating now, budget cuts at the CBC unfortunately.

Wow. What a pretentious bitch.
Dreams of being naked can be interpreted in different ways. To successfully interpret the meaning you need to ask intelligent questions and this writer failed. She tried to steer the interpretation (and article) to shame (paralleling her disdain for RA fandom as well) presumably due to the ridiculous rumors about his personal life (something he has in common with other handsome actors – they all have them!). Without the benefit of interviewing Mr. Armitage I interpret his naked dream as feeling unprepared because of his comments about laziness and being a “worker” as well as previous comments about how extensively he prepares for role.

Also I think they need to stop letting people interview him in his dressing room. He’s in Proctor-mode, leave him be!

Thank you Servetus. I read the article after reading your letter. It is hard to know where to start with this writer. Obviously she has little respect for fans in general but she pretty much put all of Richard’s in the “old” column and I’m surprised she just didn’t say it but probably thought she was being clever using Barry Manilow as an example. We all know that the majority of Richard’s fans are intelligent women, some older and some younger but what does that matter. We are not the average “fan” and this article isn’t about One Direction.

She managed to slam the new movie but I’d bet she didn’t use the word schlock when she talked with Richard. Yes, it is a disaster film but really who made her chief critic for a film that hasn’t come out yet? Now I liked the Vicar of Dibley but I agree with Servetus about that and I don’t believe Richard had one moment of ill ease playing that role and what a slam at Dawn French really or every overweight person. See she resorted to seeing the actual actors not the roles and apparently it isn’t possible for her to believe that a rather lovely woman who is overweight could ever find love with a man who is handsome.

Sure Richard is handsome and don’t we all know that but we do care what is beneath that and I had to laugh when I read that “he didn’t know” why he wasn’t married. Really did she ask him straight out why he wasn’t? He is so polite really. I’d have just told her that I chose not to be at this time. Was she fishing for something else? Probably but Richard has become the master of eluding reporters like her. He isn’t that shy young actor any longer. He stands up for himself and he tells you what “he” wants to tell you and you could tell that she wasn’t getting what she wanted from him.

There were some interesting things in the article but not a lot that was surprising except how poorly she handled him. Servetus says she is really a good writer normally so what happened here? Was it that he was too good looking and didn’t fit into the mold she wanted?

I wonder what Richard thought when he saw the finished article, and I’m sure he has seen it. She certainly didn’t praise any of his past work. It was like everything prior to The Crucible was junk really. Sure he has worked in some things that weren’t really what he was looking for but what actor hasn’t. It is part of the dues really.

I thought the Sunday Times was better than that too but maybe Ms Gold had an axe to grind as we say.

Oh, no need for sorry. I so admire those who speak more than one language. We take some French here in school as we are supposed to be a bilingual country but I am afraid I was not very good at mastering it. Serv certainly did say it well and we certainly have been feeling quite fiery all night!

Well done, Servetus for calling her out. I agree with everything said here and will only add that I have found The Sunday Times to be a very sensationalist publication for years – they love to be controversial. It’s allied to The Times but has a different approach and management.

Applauds thank you Serv and all those who have commented. I was irked from start to finish by this writer so was very relieved to find I’m not the only one, that I wasn’t just being touchy and quite possibly going into APM. Not that Richard needed me there of course, he handled the interview very well, and there are some nuggets to be found. For what it’s worth, on reading the article again, my belief is that she didn’t get what she wanted from him (“maybe he just doesn’t want to tell me“, “Or not to tell them things“) so the snark took over.

I read this after seeing the reaction of fans in the greater fandom and while there are a couple of things that are a little crass towards VOD and his fans I wasn’t nearly as offended as some. Richard is now a much bigger player than he was and so this type of interview is to be expected even from the quality papers like the times so speculation about his private life is going to happen. As for us his fans we have always been ridiculed we always will be – goes with the territory. Its the same with VOD, which I love when I’m down and need cheering up. In non fans there has always been an opinion wrongly as far as I’m concerned that fat girls shouldn’t expect to fall in love at all let along with a lovely bloke.

And lets face it a lot of fans, who have been around since Thornton are not impressed with his choices in films like In To The Storm for the very reason she is stating.

If you can get beyond that it is actually an interesting piece and one where the writer herself confirms something Richard says about himself all the time, about being immersed in a character.

[i]I don’t know how happy he is, since previews are four days away and he is at least half Proctor [/i]

I also like her thoughts about handsomeness being a disability for a serious actor. How many times have we said that in this fandom? His thoughts on the red carpet where he is just acting another role are interesting as well – he remains confused about how popular he is.

I was also was interested in what she said about him leaving musical theatre and Gillian Lynne’s comments.

That his fans are ridiculed is nothing new, I agree, but I don’t recall reading anything quite as churlish as this. She did redeem herself a little in my eyes with those last two sentences, but they’re not enough for me to overcome my dislike of the general tone of this piece.

I don’t think we have to put up with being ridiculed. I particularly don’t think we have to put up with being ridiculed when the picture drawn of us and others is totally inaccurate. I am not the Sunday Times but one reason I have this blog is I can say what I damn well think.

The last line is the ultimate kicker for me, actually, khandy. I was not a fan of Cats (I was in my late teens when it was a big hit — and I’m about five years older than she is, so she was in her early teens). Lots of fun to condescend to something popular, that lots of people loved at the time — because if lots of people loved it, then it must be schlock. Maybe that makes her feel good. But there are lots of profound moments in Cats and they’re not unserious just because they appeal to people.

and note — when Armitage was invited to make fun of Cats, in the Anglophile interview he refused to do so. He said (a) it was very much of the 80s and (b) he still goes back to the Eliot poems at its base.

oh — and — note that early in the piece I do say — Armitage says some interesting things here. I’m not knocking the actual quotations from Armitage. I wish she’d done a litle more of that and a little less self-profiling at our expense.

I have to admit that I learned some things that were new to me from this article – I hadn’t heard about the naked dream, for example…. also re: turning down lead in Hair, and new context about Gillian Lynne. I just still hate the preconceptions with which she seems to have approached the interview and article…. but I’m looking forward to newer / nicer things for today!

For me whole article sound like a clumsy ( by ridiculing fans and previous achievements) worded compliment.
“You look great in this new hairdo..the old one was ridiculous”- I heard something like that not so long ago 😉 😀
” A serious man.A sensitive man. Of course he couldn’t stay in Cats”-
Of course we love exactly This man !

For me it´s the most interesting post of the last days… I have to confess I`m that kind of a middleaged, fat, blondest cow, who still believes after watching VoD she could get a man like Mr. A 🙂 After raising up two daughters and being a grandmother for a year now, my naivity, innocence and willful ignorance is still the same like it was more than thirty years ago, and I stick to it :))
Thanks, Servetus, for that letter and all the ambitious comments.

Fat people find love with thin people all the time. It’s not like it’s some ridiculously crazy notion. The main thing is that (assuming you want to find love) you find it. Looking down on how other people find it is junior high school.

Over time I’ve become convinced that RA’s been married for at least five years. Besides that, since the birth of their children (a son, 4, and twin girls, 18 months), his wife has been having problems getting back to her size zero figure and because of that she doesn’t want the marriage to become known because she fears the criticism. It’s enough when the partner has to deal with such annoyances.

Disclamer: I am not only “innocent,” overweight, in RA’s age range, and a fan, but sometimes sarcastic and besides that I have a gift for making things up. In other words: there is no evidence that any of this is true.

So funny! It may be truer than we know, actually! I have always suspected that RA and Annabel Capper are in a very serious relationship for a long time now and she and him are just the type of people that want their professional and personal relationships separate. For both personal and professional reasons. I’m sure she doesn’t want to be dragged around and put on display and wants to work and be judged on her own merit. Regardless, RA likes to use his imagination, in his own words, and is quite content for us to use ours as well. It so doesn’t matter, I just love all his characters…John Stranding “don’t feel like you can’t tell me anything”, strong stoic John Proctor….all of them. When I fantasize about RA I am really fantasizing about the characters he has created. And RA is fully aware of that, and feels that is what his job is. And he does it well. And part of that is keeping the real RA a mystery so the RA characters are all the more believable.

I’ve been puzzling about what to do about this as well. I’ve posted a crazy number of posts the last week or so, so there are sometimes like a dozen new posts over night. I need to cut that down. It bothers me, too.

Thank you Servetus,
You spoke once again from my heart.
Fat people are not always fat just because they have eating disorders. I am a little overweight, yes – but I do not have eating disorders. I eat at normal dimensions, do regular exercise and still have a dress size, which is in the lower Oversize range. And I have by the way a friend who is like Richard so tall and lean and still loves me fat dwarf as I am. 😉
But that one sentence makes me sad. This one sentence to write without explanation is the same as to write that one has asthma just because you have smoked. I have, up to a single cigarette with 15, never smoked and still have asthma (and I had already before because a bronchitis is not treated properly). There are also thick, which have gained by a disease such as my former colleague, who had kidney disease, had to go to dialysis and had doubled by the cortisone her weight within one year.

It is an amazing fact of human existence that if we sit anywhere in a public place where couples roam, we will see all kinds of them with all body shapes and levels of fitness and attractiveness. all the time, sitting in a cafe to write in the afternoons, I see fat people paired with thin ones, tall ones with short ones, I see gorgeous people holding hands with ordinary ones, so-called “odd couples” of all kinds. When we look at people we don’t see what draws them together (or might repel them) just by looking. In that sense, Vicar of Dibley is just as realistic as anything we see in reality.

Also re: Dawn French — she experienced a rather drastic weight loss about three years ago, iirc. It was in all the British papers. The papers said it was because her husband had cheated on her because she was fat. (No, sorry, her husband cheated on her because he was a cheater.) Then she found love again and (I think) remarried, an Australian. She was interviewed again and said that she had had no problem with her previous weight, and left it at that.

This spring it came out that she’d lost the weight because of a uterine cancer scare. Something she’s talking about in her current standup show.

Tbh, I found the article interesting in terms what we haven’t known before. And that is actually not much. I wondered how much time Armitage gave her when you compare his quotes (“…”) to what she obviously added to fill up her article. Was it about 5 minutes maybe plus that picture? Did she only come to get the juicy answers but failed? Was is boring for her what he had actually to tell?

The comment about VoD was a pure insult for everyone involed incl. the viewers, not only his fans. Regardless if you like the show or not.

She also looked like she had done some ‘homework’ (to fill her article), probably in surfing the internet and visiting blogs/pages. I assume, she read only the titles or skimmed quickly through the threads but never cared enough to read the comments. Understanding his fandom is not done in 2 minutes. The same goes with the suggestions about his sexuality (Manilow) – there are enough pages for that. Maybe she wanted to be the new rising star who found out his big secret. If that is true, she, again, didn’t do her job properly.

I wonder if she really asked him why he isn’t married because she never quoted him in that question – and who knows what “not know” really means (a different answer to her question? A suggestion? Why only the words and not “I don’t not know why I’m married”?) I read the same answer from him in an article from some years ago (where he was more open) and it reminded me instantly on it. Maybe she got it from then and it sounded juicy enough to build the bridge to Manilow?

Very disjointed article. It read more like a cheap Daily Mail piece. If she can be thoughtful, substantive, and well-informed, she surely didn’t do it here.
What seems ironic is how much time she spends condescending upon the sexual appeal aspect of his fame while at the same time writing an article that seeks out and focuses exactly on the completely irrelevant and personal instead of anything regarding his work as creative artist in the exploration of the human condition.
And wow does she not know his fans – at all! Holy cow, I don’t have a masters or a PhD, and I’m never more surrounded by academic and intellectuals than I am when I engage in discussions on RA fan blogs and forums. Sorry, Tanya, for not being the fanbase you’re imagining.
Could it be that most of his fans are followers precisely for what she quoted Richard saying about his work – that we saw something in ourselves in a character he played? That he is handsome is icing on the cake, not the main meal. And I suppose we will always be characterized as hormonal biddies because it makes better press, but we’re the ones who’ve latched on long ago to the talent of this particular rising star.
It would probably be better not to assign this type of article to a person who dismisses drama/theater acting as art (or those who actually pursue a career in acting). Does Ms Gold think all artists are airheads – musicians, dancers, painters, writers – or is it just actors?
Poor Richard. He puts a lot of thought into his work and would have surely had some interesting things to say to the right interviewer. But Ms. Gold and the Times were only interested in the totty bit. So sad.

RA’s ‘well-wisher’ base must certainly cut across all age-groups and both sexes, now. He was 32 when North and South was broadcast and his fanbase then was probably about aged 25 to 45 years old. Now, he’s ten years older, as are his original fans, plus he has many now who are young enough to be his daughters and sons. I’ve always thought his fans have mostly stayed on the side of civilised and many are theatre goers, not that there was actually much reference to Proctor/The Crucible in the article. It is lazy journalism to suggest we’re all basically stupid being an RA fan after all this time.

And as far as ITS is concerned, he has been quoted as saying he basically did it for a Green Card – and we don’t know how much he’s tied in to WB.

As far as VoD is concerned, it is actually quite insulting to see it solely as – ‘if fat Geraldine can get a handsome bloke we all can’. Geraldine’s size was irrelevant – she was a bit of an everywoman (something the journalist should have realized). Anyone who had watched all the series and the ups and downs of Geraldines’ love-life, would have just been pleased that Geraldine got to marry the tall, dark, handsome and talented Harry, (played by the tall, dark, handsome and talented RA.)

as someone pointed out to me last night, we saw the behind the scenes footage of him laughing his a** off while making it; his statements that he loved being in it after Robin Hood; his statement that Dawn French was a secret celebrity crush; and his statement on the extras saying that she deserved someone good to love.

I expected more from a paper like the Times, tbh. Daily Mail publish all manner of excrement, but this? shakes head Standing on the sidelines of the fandom, I’m not up in arms about the content of the article, more than reacting with a “wtf?” at reading it. Perhaps the writer was burned by a fandom before or something, or why the hate on fandoms?

The poo-pooing of VoD I fail to understand. It was a very well done British sitcom, genuinely funny and never vicious or mean. The size of Dawn French was never an issue, even if it was an occasional comedy plot point (hiding an emergency chocolate bar in a Bible, for instance – which doesn’t even relate to a person’s size anyway). There was that 60 seconds interview with Martin Freeman (I THINK it was there) where he expressed a dislike for or fear of getting fat which made me frown at the time, but hey, it could just have been a personal preference with his own body rather than a general critique of everyone else, like “I personally wouldn’t want to get fat, but each to their own and I’m not judging”. I have always been “the fat kid” in school, so … touchy subject, which is why the fat hate/shaming was my biggest (err, no pun intended) issue with the article.

Then again, I guess the article worked as linkbait – fans getting angry and going to read the article. Thank you for writing this response, Servetus. I very much agree with it.

When my daughters were teenagers I gave them a piece of advice – never put anything in writing. (This was the age when girls still passed handwritten notes, before texting). It’s too easy for nasty words to come back to you later and cause problems

That said, I truly wonder if Tanya gold will ever come to regret this article. I don’t know her motivation, but why would she intentionally write something so mean-spirited? And, should the occasion ever arise, would she be able to look RA in the eye and not be embarrassed by her words?

Maybe I am naive and innocent ( I admit to being a Barry manilow fan many years ago) but I don’t understand why a person would deliberately be so rude? Whatever her reasons for writing this, I hope that she can live with them. I don’t believe that I could ever write something like this and not feel guilt and remorse for treating another person with such disrespect

I agree. Ms. Gold’s tone was mean spirited toward Richard Armitage and his career and to his fans. Sadly, I doubt she will feel any regret–based on her comments.

I wonder how any self respecting editor at the Times would let the article be published? Was everyone “asleep at the switch” as the phrase goes–and her article slipped by the editors, let alone the Times legal team?

I couldn’t read the full article because of the whole ‘subscription’ thing. But from what I’ve read, it was terrible of her to write such things. Thank you for this letter. I feel like it somehow expresses everything I wanted to say regarding this matter

I’ve never heard of Tanya Gold so I gogled her and read some of her other articles. From what I read, it seems this story is not much different from her other stories, i.e. taking elements of what she considers absurd, inappropriate lifestyle choices and writing sarcastic articles about them. In this particular piece that seems to be fandoms, VOD, shlock disaster movies, or any other thing having to do with RA’s career prior to The Crucible. I usually enjoy reading these types of articles, but she seemed to go a bit over board to the point of mean-spirtedness in this article. You can’t really figure out the the sequence of the interview from how the article is written, but RA’s quote re getting f’ing angry about people interrupting his work could’ve been for Ms. Gold’s benefit. If so, wonder if she caught the sarcasm.

Thought provoking is why I ususally enjoy reading folks with this writing style. But, I think she just wanted to provoke this time around.

If it’s fat-hatting, then she must hate herself. I do not say that to be ugly — it’s just a conclusion because I was little surprised when I saw her picture, considering what she wrote in the article. Usually people who disparage over-weight people are not over weight…or at least that’s my presumption. Maybe she was putting up a wall to keep her inner fan girl from coming out — after she came face-to-face with RA 🙂

I don’t want to discuss her weight because if we do that we do precisely the thing she does and I won’t descend to that level. Either fat hate as an idea is okay or it’s not, doesn’t matter if the hater is fat or thin.

mainstream print journalism is in crisis — partially because of the new media but partially because for so many years the barriers to reader response were so high that few people objected to the nasty things print journalists wrote. I’m ambivalent about new media but I think we have to use the tools in our hands to tell people that the way they write about us is not okay.

It isn’t my intent to stoop to her level — that would be cruel, unkind and just plain bad manners. However it is odd that she took the slant she took in the article considering your statement. I think her biase against fandoms & fear of her own inner-fan-girl had something to with how the article was written.

I wouldn’t get your knickers too much in a twist about Gold. Yes her Armitage interview is lazy, ignorant vitriol, but then that’s what she specializes in. I read through many of her other articles in various papers – she peaked around 2009 it seems. I can see why you like her writing Serv, yes it can be engaging, witty and seemingly relevant. (Although I didn’t find the piece about Middleton very interesting). However it remains largely characterised by self-indulgent bile! Even the better ones.
The comments about Vicar of Dibley – well she is overweight and riddled with body image issues herself- perhaps that’s why she felt she could say those things. She does a disservice not only to Richard’s previous work but also to that series in itself – fails to remember it was extremely popular not only with the viewing public but also with broadsheet critics alike. Her piece about her time at Merton is particularly telling. Basically she cocked up and blamed the system for her own mistakes. As a graduate of the same college I can tell you she is talking nonsense. Young, ignorant and confused I’m afraid.
I doubt she gives a monkey’s bum about your blog or email from a university account though… Sorry Serv, I would have just ignored her.

[…] a journalist, however, then I would be allowed to point out the ridiculousness of what she does, as I have in the case of other journalists. I could point out the lousy rhetoric, the poor videography, the sloppy editing, the fact that her […]

[…] Gold resurfaces to slam Richard Armitage for being reticent. Ms Gold, we all remember that bash job of an interview. We knew what you wanted and you didn’t get. You spent as much time slamming Armitage’s […]

I’m not sure what you mean by MM. That said, I wouldn’t have been this angry had I thought she was either ill informed or writing to be popular. Most of what she writes is actually so against the grain that it’s enraging. I’ve seen a few of her pieces recently that were written in a similar vein (one about parenting in Cornwall comes to mind). I think she’s mostly writing from a standpoint of alienation.